It’s loud.

It’s raw.

It’s in your face.

Is riding a motorcycle on the dirty, traffic-choked streets of Metro Manila the new punk rock?

Could be, if you’re gaki_girl.

I discovered this Filipino motorcycle video blogger while randomly trawling YouTube for bike porn (it’s not what you think).

At a time when women are still a tiny—albeit growing—minority of the millions of Filipinos getting around on two wheels, gaki_girl has been roaming the city with a GoPro helmet cam on her trusty KTM Duke 200, giving her viewers a taste of what it’s really like out there on her YouTube channel (#GakiMoto).

Big deal, you might say.  We get enough of traffic in real life, why watch it on video?

Well for one, the running commentary, delivered in nearly unedited stream-of-consciousness style, in accented English that lets the viewer know that, for sure, this girl went to  an exclusive girl school.

As in a Duterte speech, there’s a lot of swearing involved, at bad drivers, snarled traffic, crappy roads.

But there are also moments of exhilaration as she experiences the freedom of the occasional stretches of open road, test rides some very nice bikes, and meets interesting characters in the emerging Filipino custom motorcycle subculture.

Flying Ipis

The punk rock analogy became clearer when I discovered that gaki_girl was, in real life, none other than Gaki Azurin, drummer for the all-female garage punk band Flying Ipis.

Known for their fun live sets and cheekily titled recordings (“Give Ipis a Chance”), the band made a splash in the local music scene earlier this year when they were invited to the prestigious South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival held every year in Austin, Texas—only the third Filipino band to receive this honor.

Female musicians are no longer unusual in the local indie rock scene, but people still do a double take when they see a female motorcycle rider, specially one riding confidently on something other than a pink scooter.

Gaki_girl is, quite possibly, a harbinger of more Filipino women taking to two wheels, mobility being integral to being fully independent.

We caught up with her to find out more:

How long have you been living this double life, musician by night, motorcycle vlogger by day?
Actually, it’s a triple life: I’m also a personal trainer by day, I do one-on-one home service sessions.  It’s pretty hard to balance with the Flying Ipis gigs, they end at 1 or 2 a.m. and I have to be up by 6 a.m.  Bringing the bike has been so convenient for me with the traffic now.

Is that how it started, practical reasons?
No, I’ve always wanted to ride, ever since I was little.  I rode bicycles, but I always wanted to have a motorcycle.  Of course, my parents weren’t very supportive.

When my job began to pay off a bit more, I was able to buy my own, a Kawasaki KSR 110.  I got it on installment. I told my dad it was for business.  Up to now he still does not agree with the whole thing.
That was seven years ago.  It was a great learning bike.  I basically taught myself to ride, but I really should have gone to a riding school.

Your current ride, the KTM Duke 200, isn’t exactly a girly bike.  It’s more of a scrambler: sporty, aggressive, a real guy’s bike.
I saw it a year before I bought it.  It looked real good so I started saving up for it.  Sometimes women want something between their legs—no pun intended.

How did the video blog start?
There are a lot of motobloggers abroad.  We were watching some on YouTube and my husband said: ‘Why don’t you try doing something like that?’  Since I talk to myself anyway when I’m on the bike, I said I’ll just video the ride.  That was last April.  I’m up to 50 episodes now.  I’m committed to doing at least two episodes a week.

“Riding in the Philippines” is interesting on its own.  I could do videos without having to talk— there’s so much going on.  Traffic violation after traffic violation, cops beating the red light or parked on the pedestrian lane.  It’s crazy.  I’m a daily rider so I have 30 minutes of video at the end of the day and I just squeeze it into a 5-minute action-packed episode.

What has been your gnarliest experience on the bike?  Have you crashed?
Typical experience in the Philippines—a child crossed the road.  Luckily I was only going 30 or 40 km/hour so I came out fine.  But I’ve had a lot of close calls.

You get bullied sometimes. People have cut into my lane. A guy will stare them down, hahabulin. But girls, we’ll just let it slide. Busina na lang. It’s on video, anyway.

What about your band?  How often do you get to play?
We like to have at least one gig a week, or else we get bored.  The current lineup has been together for six years, but we’ve been a band since high school.  I’ve been into OPM rock since first year high school.  Wolfgang, P.O.T.

SXSW was a huge deal. We got to see big bands play in small bars—Coheed and Cambria, the Kills, Bloc Party.  We got to chill out with some of them after the gig.  That was fun.  We met people from Taiwan, Australia, and we have this invitation to play in a Russian music festival.

Do you get more thrills from playing, or from riding?
It’s different.  I would say a great gig is still a great gig. Riding is more of an everyday thing.  It’s thrilling if I get to go on a long ride, or go out of town, or try a new motorcycle.  That’s one thing I’ve enjoyed with this vlog.  I get to ride custom bikes, things like that.

There’s also that social factor: you get to meet different people.  It doesn’t matter what bike you ride, everybody’s love for motorcycles sort of brings them together.

It’s also a different way of traveling.  It’s more exciting. You see everything, and you experience it differently.  You feel the heat, you get wet in the rain, you look around more.  It’s a different view of the city from the bike.  It’s more interesting.

What’s next?  More women would like to ride, but there seem to be a lot of obstacles in their way.
I tried to get a women’s group ride going the other week, but I found only 10 women riders, and of the 10 only two were willing to go on the ride.

Next year I’m planning a motobloggers’ meet up.  I’ve rounded up about six.  I know the Philippines is a small country, but there’s so much to see.

There’s also an all-female ride in California called “Babes Ride Out.”  A female motoblogger from California saw my videos, and they’re inviting me to go riding with them next year in October.

I’m also doing some bike shopping.  I’m looking at bigger bikes—the Yamaha MT-07 or the Ducati Scrambler Sixty Two.  I think it’s time for me to get on the highway.